Chennai: Many parents and students were irked by the stringent dress code and frisking done at centres before the NEET exam.
Students were asked remove clips, shoes and jewellery at the exam centres. Many parents were also forced to cut the sacred threads from the hands of their children. In some instances, they were asked to remove the anklets.
Ravi, a government employee from Madurai waited outside the KV school in Island grounds. He said the students are more worried about the dress code and frisking than the exam. “In all the exams, including UPSC’s civil services exam, the candidates are being treated with dignity. Here, the CBSE’s frisking is borderline harassment. They should conduct the online exams to avoid hardships caused to the students,” he urged.
S. Narendrakumar who runs a shop in Kancheepuram district said his son did not have breakfast or water as he was not sure whether the officials would allow students to use the toilet during the exams.
Another parent complained that the students should be allowed to carry their bags into the exam halls and the CBSE should provide safe rooms to keep their purses and phones. They were not allowed to carry anything, forcing parents to suffer in the heat as guardians of the property. He also cited the problem of there being no toilets or drinking water facilities for parents.
Government coaching was helpful: Students
The government school students who attended the state government’s residential coaching for NEET exam were confident of getting better marks this year.
M. Ananthi from Ramapuram attended the residential coaching in Chennai for four weeks. She said the mock tests and residential coaching helped her to do well in biology. “There were a few questions from mock tests asked in the biology section. Chemistry is moderately tough and we could not understand the physics questions,” she said adding that after coaching she was aware of many concepts in the lessons which helped her to attend many questions.
Though the coaching was provided by experts from Chaitanya and Allyn, the students felt the preparations were a bit rushed due to shortage of time. “We need to prepare for NEET from class 11 and it will help many government school students to do well in the common medical entrance test,” they said.
Another student, G.Sangeetha from Jaigopal Garodia Government Girls Higher Secondary School in Choolaimedu, said she found around 10 to 15 questions from the mock tests. “We were not taught to study and understand deeply. The residential coaching was very helpful in understanding the concepts. But the duration of the coaching is not enough.”
Many government school students could not answer the questions based on class 11 syllabus. “The Tamil medium students did not fear the NEET this time. They are confident of facing the competitive exams due to the coaching,” one of the coordinators of the coaching programme said. The teachers are expecting many government school students to do well and get MBBS admissions this year.
